#I don’t know how real it is but Lego Twitter somewhere made a thing about it in conclusion

[feeling--pink]

Gay legos in space, more at 10

[writtenonthesubwaywalls]

Don’t Throw Out My Legos: World’s Smallest Violin

Tropes: banter, old friends/old rivals

TWs: mental health and social media mention

Part Two (<<prev : next>>)

A few minutes after he woke up the first time he realized he couldn't fall back asleep. Sometimes, when the body wants to be awake, that's all you can do about it. So, Alfred got out of bed, pulled on a shirt that had been laying on the floor, and made his way quietly into the kitchen without turning on any of the lights. He poured himself a cup of leftover coffee and leaned against the counter, considering whether to go on a run this morning, or just walk to and from the corner store instead. Either would be about the same, he supposed, but walking would save gas. And it's nice out this morning, so that would be a bonus. Maybe his house guest would be gone by the time he got back.

The American didn't bother getting dressed for a trip to get gas station groceries- even forgoing socks in his tennis shoes, which he cursed himself for every step of the way. While there he made sure to say hi to Sam, the woman who owned the corner store and ran it about by herself, and slip her cat a piece of pepperoni from his pack in secret. "Come on, its for protection," he said when she called him out on it, "I can't have him turn on me now can I?"

On the walk back it started to rain, and the grey rainwater in the dirty city streets splashed into his un-insulated shoes and made him at least a pound heavier the entire way. By the time he made it back to his doorway, his clothes stuck to his skin and made him feel like an undercooked dumpling. He came into the dry house, peeled off most of his clothes, and left them in a crumpled pile to drain into a puddle next to the door. He started to head back to his room and about tripped on his companion sitting on the living room floor. "What in the holy god damn- why are you just sitting on the floor? There's three perfectly good couches in here that I paid good money for."

"I'm looking at your reconstruction," Ivan said evenly. "Why are you building one this way? Wouldn't it be more accurate to use real building materials? Or even just a more accurate model kit?"

Alfred didn't know how to explain that the point was that it was an easy medium to build through. He also didn't know how to explain that he wasn't building it because it was a model of the Coliseum, he was building it because he needed something to completely encompass his entire attention so he stops thinking about everything all the time and- "Maybe I just like toys." He definitely did know how to be defensive. The other man quickly glanced his way out of the corner of his eye, but paid him little mind. Used to it, probably, he thought. "It's not actually about the Coliseum, it's more the fact that it's the new biggest Lego set, and I thought that it would be fun to build. I'll probably put it on display somewhere in one of my houses or donate it to some local library or what have you when I'm done. Y'know, that sort of thing. Philanthropy or whatever the fuck."

Ivan nodded through his little spiel. To give him credit, he did listen whenever Alfred talked, even if it was about nothing, or something horribly, terribly stupid or inane. Probably to use against him later. "I have read that people require proper enrichment in the same way that animals in zoos might." He left the sentence there.

"And?"

"And what?"

Alfred looked at him with his arms crossed. "That statement was obviously a set up for something else. What about enrichment?"

"Nothing in particular. I had just figured that this would be the same for you, would it not? An enrichment exercise?"

"Are you insulting me?"

"Not this time."

Alfred thought, then nodded. "It is enrichment for me I think. Like how some animals will start rubbing their fur off or something like that but like, mentally or whatever, Maybe it is enrichment." He paused. "Where did you read that?"

"Twitter, I believe. Some kind of study or article that people really liked. I'm surprised you did not come across it."

He shrugged self consciously, and his crossed arms turned into a self-hug without him really noticing. "I kind of try to stay away from things like that," he said, "It gets to be too much for me and I kinda clock out after a bit so I just. I just stopped making myself go into those kinds of situations."

Things were quiet for a while, that was both too short and excruciatingly long. "Did I put you into one of those positions? Is that why you were gone this morning?"

This question wouldn't have stopped him like it did if Ivan hadn't still been sitting on the floor, faced away from him. It felt vulnerable. "No," he breathed, almost to himself. "No, you didn't. I don't think you have in decades." It was in these moments he realized he was still holding a bag of groceries on his wrist, cutting off circulation into his hand and starting to sting. He uncrossed his arms and held his hands at his sides, the plastic shuffling of the bag cutting into the genuineness of the moment. "Anyway I bought some things to make a real breakfast so if you want to eat you'll have to get up off the floor and come to the kitchen."

Obligingly the Russian stood and gestured to the kitchen area, the transition changing the mood entirely and relieving the weight that had been building on Alfred's shoulders that entire talk.

--

About an hour and a change of clothes later, the two sat at his small kitchen bar with an amount of pancakes, thick and fluffy, and eggs in front of them. Not the most extravagant meal he's ever prepared for someone, but vastly better than what he'd recently been doing for himself in the mornings. They ate in mostly one-sided conversation- both preferred it this way. Then, at some point in the morning, the rain turned to a storm, and wind bashed the branches of the only tree on the block into the side of the house, scratching at the siding and the windows of the second story, which echoed through the whole house. The sound was like creatures trying to claw their way out of the walls, and it made Alfred shiver. Something about his dreams tugged at the back of his thoughts, but he forced it back. Something for his subconscious to deal with later.

"You seem unwell," his partner commented, picking up their plates and setting them into the sink to be done later. "Did you eat too much? I did not think that was possible for you."

"Yeah, haha, very funny," he said sarcastically, but his heart wasn't in it. "I'm just listening to the storm. I don't want to have to replace any shingles again because of that god forsaken tree."

"Could you not remove the tree?" He refilled Alfred coffee; Ivan brewed new while he was out and it was a little too strong for his liking, but coffee is coffee.

"I could, but I don't have the heart. It's the only tree around here and its a fun hangout spot for some of the younger kids when they get off the bus in the afternoons. I can't just, get rid of it." He didn't want to say that it's the only living thing he interacts with regularly. He didn't want to say that the only reason he goes outside half the days is to talk to the tree so it doesn't get lonely.

"That is respectable. Even if it is part of your 'philanthropy or whatever'." He smiled, leaning forward enough to rest his elbows on the counter and sip from his cup. Alfred was going to stand, or lean forward, or leave, but he stayed right where he was, cup in hand, thinking about how his hands were long and slim and the other's were rough from wear and made to work.

Maybe the secret to life is in the hands.

"If you say so."

[krumbine]

Quarantine’s End: Smoke ‘Em If You’ve Got ‘Em

Canned tuna, cheese puffs, toilet paper, and cigarettes.

Welcome to the end of the world.

###

I sat on the floor and picked at the edge of the tape that sealed off the front door.

There was nothing else left to do.

It was almost six months since I had put the tape around the edges of the door, optimistically sealing out the poison that lurked in the air for so long now. The grey tape was no longer shiny and new but dull and worn and frayed at the edges, clinging to that fading optimistic hope of sealing out the unknown.

Not at all unlike me.

I grunted at the insipid irony and pulled at the edge of the tape, feeling the worn glue give way. The edge curled and I was able to get a grip on it.

I turned and got to my knees, placing one palm against the door as I gave the tape a solid yank.

There was nothing else left to do.The tape tore loudly, echoing down the empty shotgun hallway of my tomb-like home. The bottom section peeled away and lifted the side seal. I climbed to my feet and continued pulling the tape from around the door frame.

As more and more of the door’s seams were exposed, I could feel a tightening in my chest.

It was psychosomatic. Or at least, that’s what I tried to tell myself. The virus wouldn’t have made it through the seams so quickly––even I could admit the tape had been a step too far into the deep end of paranoia.

But when the reported mortality rate exceeded eighty percent, well, fuck me. Sure, there might be a distinction between paranoia and the instinct to survive, but I’m at least eighty percent sure that the virus didn’t give a shit.

The tape peeled away from the top of the door.

Paranoia aside, cold logic said that the stockpile of supplies wouldn’t last. I had tried to ration, but the pandemic had come crashing down like a tidal wave––there had been little time to prepare and store shelves had been nearly picked clean by the time I arrived.

Canned tuna, cheese puffs, toilet paper, and cigarettes. 

Welcome to the end of the world.

I was down to the last strip of tape. It cried out in defeat as I pulled it off the door frame, removing the last barrier between myself and the virus.

The cheese puffs had been the first to go. The tuna ran out four days ago.

Still had enough toilet paper, but what’s the point if you don’t have anything to eat?

The cigarettes, well, those were the epitome of an impulse buy. I hadn’t smoked since I dropped the habit eight and a half years ago. It had been after the second divorce. I had purged so many toxins from my life, it only made sense to dump the smokes, too.

But when you’re staring down the barrel of a pandemic and the store shelves are empty, save a healthy supply of cancer sticks, well, why not indulge in a one last cigarette before the world ends?

What’s the worst that could happen?

As my supplies dwindled, I never touched the cigarettes. I don’t know why. Maybe it had something to do with that ironic duct tape optimism, sealing out the poison air.

Whatever the reason, my supplies vanished, the cigarettes remained, and the final strip of tape lay crumpled on the ground.

There was nothing else left to do.

I pulled the deadbolt back and turned doorknob.

The door creaked open. The vacuum of my improvised tomb ripped open, and air––that virus-laden, eighty-percent-mortality, poisonous air––rushed by my ears.

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew that this was inevitable, even from the very beginning.

Since there was nothing else left to do, I stepped over the threshold.

It was sunny out. My front lawn was overgrown and the street was empty. The neighborhood sat quiet, the poison air heavy with a deadly stillness.

This time, the tightness in my chest was real.

There really was nothing else left to do.

I had no supplies. I had no way to get fresh provisions. Even if I could raid a neighboring house, there was no way I could filter the air in my house when I got back. That’s assuming I had the means to make the trip in the first place.

Which I didn’t.

I tried to take in a deep breath, but it was no use.

Eighty percent my ass.

I fished the cigarettes and matches out of my pocket as I sat down on the stoop. The plastic peeled away and I extracted one of the smokes.

I was already wheezing when I put the cigarette between my lips, striking the match, and taking that first, long pull.

Nicotine. Tar. Arsenic.

Cancer research says that the smoke from a cigarette contains thousands of chemicals. It might have been eight years since my last cigarette, but as the smoke filled my lungs, my brain lit up as that familiar release washed over me.

I don’t know if it was the knowledge that this was, truly, my last smoke, but fuck me sideways with a jackhammer.

That was good.

The cigarette burned in my fingers as I held the smoke in my lungs. When it became too much, I released it with a hacking cough.

Excruciating pain shot through my chest.

Yep. That’s how that eighty percent mortality rate was supposed to go. Tightness, shortness of breath, trouble breathing, excruciating pain, lung failure, and then lights out. Curtains. Show’s over. All bets are off because no one wins when you gamble against the virus.

I took another long drag on the cigarette.

Fuck me.

I didn’t want to go like this. Isolated. Alone. And what the fuck did I even do with my life? I built a career pushing papers and helping fat rich fucks get fatter and richer. Two failed marriages, a best friend who hated me even more than my ex wives, and a family that wouldn’t give me the time of day.

I’m pretty sure I didn’t do any of this right. But then again, the virus wouldn’t care if you were a motherfucking saint or Gandhi or Jesus Fucking Christ himself.

Another drag.

What did it matter? Good, bad, right, wrong––the virus came for everyone, indiscriminately. Even the fat rich fucks with their endless supplies of tuna and cheese puffs … they wouldn’t be able to escape the virus forever.

The virus made it all pointless. Success. Failure. Life. Death.

Another long pull, thousands of chemicals swirling in a cloud of burning smoke inside me. I could literally feel the carcinogens pricking at my lungs.

After another long moment, I let out a stream of smoke. My chest sunk slowly. Deliberately.

I expelled the final contents of my lungs.

All good things and all that jazz.

There was nothing else left to do.

My chest rose as my lungs filled with air.

I breathed out.

I repeated steps one and two.

The cigarette burned between my fingers.

Well, fuck me.

###

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jordan Krumbine is a professional video editor, digital artist, and creative wizard currently quarantined in Kissimmee, Florida. When not producing content for the likes of Visit Orlando, Orlando Sentinel, or AAA National, Jordan is probably yelling at a stubbornly defective Macbook keyboard, tracking creative projects in Trello, and animating quirky videos with LEGO and other various toys.

Leave a dollar in the Tip Jar: https://ko-fi.com/krumbine

Short stories: https://bit.ly/2XY5D7I Books on Amazon Kindle: https://amzn.to/3bsqK5Y YouTube: https://bit.ly/2W41nSG Twitter: https://bit.ly/2VH0Vbu Facebook: https://bit.ly/2VpnylZ LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/2xnmk1e

http://www.krumbco.com

[raakxhyr]

Rules: answer these 85 statements about yourself, then tag 20 people. 

Tagged by @crootiam

Last

1. drink- pineapple juice

2. phone call- mother

3. text message- my old roommate (because of an anxiety attack)

4. song you listened to- Killing Time by Infected Mushroom

5. time you cried- ...yesterday? (Saturday)

ever

6. dated someone twice? No.

7. kissed someone and regretted it? No.

8. been cheated on? No.

9. lost someone special? Yes.

10. been depressed? Still am.

11. gotten drunk and thrown up? No. I hate throwing up. (Thanks Mom.)

fave colours

12. Blue

13. Not really a color but black

14. Also not really a color but white

in the last year have you…

15. made new friends? Definitely.

16. fallen out of love?  Wasn’t in love to begin with.

17. laughed until you cried? A lot. Best feeling.

18. found out someone was talking about you? I’m often paranoid about it. 

19. met someone who changed you? Oh, most definitely.

20. found out who your friends are? Yes, and sitll searching.

21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list? On the cheek, yes. Nothing romantic, though. Just friendly greeting things that...aunts always seem to do at parties.

general

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl? I’d have to go through my facebook list again. I’ve been unfriending people.

23. do you have any pets? Two puppers.

24. do you want to change your name? No. Too much work. I’m fine with my name.

25. what did you do for your last birthday? Spent it with my very best hometown friends. I quite miss them. We memed till we dropped.

26. what time did you wake up today? I don’t know. I was in and out of sleep. Maybe 11 officially.

27. what were you doing at midnight last night? Uh...homework, I think.

28. what is something you can’t wait for? RTX 2k18 :D

30. what are you listening to right now? The hum of my laptop upon my desk, the ticking of the clock that marches on into the evening, the air flowing through the vent, my fingers tapping along the keys of my laptop.

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom? Yes. Tom(Fawkes) (amazing dude) and a friend on here :0c

32. something that’s getting on your nerves- Currently? Nothing. Things that always do? [insert long list here]

33. most visited website- Tumblr, Youtube, and Twitter are tied.

34. hair color- Black

35. long or short hair- Short

36. do you have a crush on someone? Kind of, but it’s conflicting.

37. what do you like about yourself? That depends what mood I’m in. But, I’m a generally prideful person, so...everything.

38. want any piercings? I already have two.

39. blood type- O+

40. nicknames- I have many, choose one. Or more.

41. relationship status- Single.

42. zodiac- Leo/Virgo

43. pronouns-  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

44. fave tv shows- Lucifer, HTGAWM, NCIS (all), Star Trek, Pokemon, Bull, Hawaii Five-0, etc

45. tattoos- Zero.

46. right or left handed- I’m a righty

47. ever had surgery? I think once, when I was younger, on my back. Don’t remember what it was for but it was small.

49. sport- Not currently doing anything but I do love tennis.

50, vacation- staycation mostly. But I do some yearly family outings to Vegas or in SoCal

51. trainers- Like, my shoes? But yes, I am a Pokemon master ;)

more general

52. eating- food :p gotta be more specific.... beef, I guess

53. drinking- WATER or Milk

54. i’m about to watch- A YouTube video

55. waiting for- The weekend

56. want- To get this week over with

57. get married- Yes

58. career- medical...somewhere

which is better

59. hugs or kisses- Depends on how I’m feeling. Otherwise, huggles.

60. lips or eyes- Eyes. Love eyes so much.

62. younger or older- Older

63. nice arms or stomach- I don’t care

64. hookup or relationship- Relationship 

65. troublemaker or hesitant- A goofball

have you ever

66. kissed a stranger- Nope

67. drank hard liquor- No

68. lost glasses- Yes, but it’s okay. I got better frames.

69. turned someone down- Often

70. sex on first date- No

71. broken someones heart- Yes. 

72. had your heart broken- Yes.

73. been arrested- Nope. Never caught :^)

74. cried when someone died- Yes, only once. Unless you include fictional characters.

75. fallen for a friend- Yes. Why, is this not normal? I mean shouldn’t the person you fall for be your friend?

do you believe in

76. yourself- I try to, often, be optimistic

77. miracles- Yeah, I do. I also believe in fate. I think things happen for a reason.

78. love at first sight- Nope. Not even in fiction. Give me that good slow burn.

79. santa claus- Wait, really? You’re asking me this?

80. kiss on a first date- Depends on the person who I’m dating.

81. angels- Yes. Have you met my friends? Let me write you a list.

other

82. best friends name- Nat :) (among all my other best friends)

83. eye colour- Super, super dark brown. Could be black. Maybe I’m a demon.

84. fave movie- Too many to list. At the moment? Lego Batman.

85. fave actor- Chris Piiiiiine if it wasn’t obvious he’s a real gentle darling

I tag... no one. I dunno, do whatever the hell you want with this.

[agrandquiet]

The Emoji Movie Review

I’ve been struggling to start my review of The Emoji Movie. It’s bad. It’s reeeaaaal bad. It’s so fucking bad. And I think that would probably be the cool way to approach it. You shouldn’t watch the The Emoji Movie because it’s shit. It’s a bad story, incredibly poorly told. It features some of the most grating and uncharismatic voice acting you’ve ever heard in one of these things. It is profoundly, profoundly unpleasant to look at for any long period of time. And despite the fact that it steals it’s every idea from a panoply of better movies not a single gram of their greatness rubs off onto it.

It’s unoriginal weak-ass trash. Y’all see, somewhere a few years ago some producer was looking for a project to take off the ground. Disney’s Wreck-it-Ralph had made bank a couple years ago, Warner had just released The Lego Movie to rave reviews and Inside Out had finally entered production, the script was available without looking too hard, and people were reportedly feeling pretty positive about it. Then this soulless husk of a human being had a realisation, emoji aren’t copyrightable, nobody owns Unicode so you don’t have to pay anything for the rights. Then he masturbated everywhere, content that the little idea he had just had would keep him in business for years.

I know this is true because if you pay enough attention the besuited masturbating businessman is hidden somewhere in every single frame of this joint. If you really focus on it very hard you’ll see most of the time he’s staring directly at you and laughing. Laughing that you are enough of a chump to line his pockets by seeing this crap.

Not that he really needs your business, all the business done in this joint was carried out years ago. More grey boardrooms full of people desperate to inject brands into pop-culture, we got major plot points here that reference twitter, facebook, youtube, dropbox, spotify, candy crush, a whole sequence with some shitty Just Dance app that nobody ever heard of. It’s frankly a surprise that phone all these hateful characters live on ain’t some Samsung Galaxy™ EX10 or something like that. Maybe someone decided that that would be a step too far, but then they didn’t for the rest of this bullshit. Nah, I don’t believe it, they were probably asking for too much.

The plot of this ridiculous turd, as far as it matters, is that Gene is an emoji who just don’t fit man, he got too many emotions, i.e. more than just one and that makes him an outcast. He teams up with a High Five emoji, jealous that he’s been replaced from the favourites bar by a black fist bump, not a great scene given how fucking white this movie is. Anyhow they break outta the texting app and go on a quixotic mission to upload themselves to the internet and fix their dreaded nonconformity.

Y’all can see how this ties into that just be yourself narrative that was all the rage about three years ago. Y’know when it was all fine and cool to devote a whole movie to telling the white boy protagonist that, just be yourself man and everything will work out fine. See most movies have caught onto the fact that intersectionality might be a thing and that some people in this world may in fact have a harder time by just being themselves. film don’t need that though, it got a cool, kick-ass, off-brand version of Wyldstyle just ready to spout off white-feminism 101 talking points unheeded as if that give any credibility to this being a social picture.

So now we in the real world and the kid who owns this phone notices it acting weird and decides to wipe it, so if the emojis don’t put things right, their whole world be destroyed. Now this boy also got his own thing going on, he crushing on a girl and the film contorts its way around to the ultimatum, dude can only get her attention by using the one perfect emoji. My fucking god it lame. For all the talk of feminism we get the film don’t actually manage to learn any of these lessons cause guess how many lines the object of his desire gets?

None. Of course she don’t get nothing to say because the film made by dudes in their fifties who just don’t fucking get it. You’ll notice this anytime the film tries to make a joke about technology or the internet. They all fucking flop. Goddamn, at one point they go to the ‘piracy app’ like fuck that’s a thing and then that whole sequence is just a wide array of jokes that don’t connect because none of them relate to anything close to reality. I’m certain that none of these people has ever used a P2P service in their lives, if they had at least they’d be able to come close to a functional gag.

More wasted than the gags though are the spaces that this film lazily tries to palm off to us. In literalising the spaces of a constructed world the filmmaker gets to take their own opinions and imbue the world with them. This an even greater power in the animated medium where the creators aren’t even limited by the frameworks of reality. See on our screens a website, let’s say youtube, is a working manual to its own operation. The very way the site is manipulates and guides our habits until youtube exists not within the videos or on the screen but in our very minds, dictating how we interact with it.

In creating a representation of these places, as The Emoji Movie gets carte blanche to do, it is irresponsible for them not to question the authorial intent of their design. To just accept that these things be the way they be is to propagandise the very states of mind that the developers of these apps wish to trap us in. That what the movie do. It is unthinkingly reverential to the brands it chooses to depict and that is a weak and pathetic way to go. The one exception is that piracy place, which it obviously hates, but doesn’t understand enough to properly condemn.

Look, I’m sure it must have been a lot working on this movie, I’m sure there were a lot of big egos contained within the office’s cum stained walls, but did no one have the courage to admit that the emoji’s themselves look repulsive? Cos they do. They look like hideous disgusting dump. They are certain to haunt my nightmares. Look at one too long and you’ll start to feel physically sick. It might be much, but the film fails on this one basic level, one of the earliest things you gotta get right. No wonder the rest all goes to fuck.

I usually mention people’s names in these reviews. I’m not gonna here, I think the stigma of being related to The Emoji Movie is embarrassment enough.

The Emoji Movie is currently screening in UK cinemas.